good around here. Next time I’m nursing a hangover, you wait on me.’
‘Deal,’ I said with a nervous laugh, and took the fish. ‘Thanks.’ We ate in silence. I’m not a big fan of food that can stare at me but I was too hungry to complain. I apologised to the trout’s face and wolfed the rest of it down.
After dinner Fergal put a couple of logs on the fire and said that even though he would love to talk all night, he was beat. He touched the alder, put his pack under his head and closed his eyes. My short nap had done little to ease my overall body pain. I put my head on the ground and moaned. Just before I went out, I thought I saw some strange movement in the branches above. I sat up and had a good look but then decided I was just spooking myself.
I dreamt I was back in the Real World in a super-posh shoe store where I didn’t even have to put the shoes on myself. Sales clerks actually knelt down and placed all kinds of really cool footwear directly on my feet.
Dawn, as it always does, came too early. I find that going to sleep under the stars is lovely but waking up outside is a drag. It leaves me itchy, damp and with terminal bed hair. It wasn’t until I stood that I realised my shoes were missing. Well, that explained the theme of my dream. I walked over to the still-sleeping Fergal and lightly kicked him with my bare foot. He shot straight up.
‘What?’ he sputtered.
‘Ha ha, Fergal, very funny. What did you do with my shoes?’
‘What are you talking about?’ he said, getting his bearings.
‘My shoes, I don’t know how you did it without waking me up but I want my shoes back.’
‘I don’t have your shoes,’ he said, confused.
‘Quit mucking around, Fergal, I had them on when I went to sleep.’
‘I’m telling you I don’t have your…uh-oh.’ Fergal jerked his hand a couple of times and then pulled his tunic over his head. ‘Damn it,’ he said, ‘damn it, damn it, damn it!’
‘What? What is it?’
‘My Banshee blade is gone-and the wire too.’
‘What do you mean gone?’
‘Robbed, we were robbed last night.’
Oh, just great, I thought, now I’m going to have to walk in this godforsaken land barefoot. Then I had a terrible thought. Slowly I reached down to my waist and felt for my scabbard-the Sword of Duir was gone.
Chapter Seven
‘They took my sword. Oh my God, my father is going to kill-L me.’
Fergal went over to the alder and placed his hand on the bark, then kicked it. A rain of branches showered down that made us run out from under its cover.
‘Fergal, what the hell is going on?’
‘We got rumbled by the alder last night.’
‘Are you telling me the tree mugged us?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Then who could take my shoes and your wire from under your shirt without waking us up?’
‘Brownies, damn them.’
‘Whos-ies?
‘Brownies-who else?’
‘You mean like girl scouts?’
‘Why do you think they were girls?’ Fergal said, confused.
‘Never mind. I have to get that sword back. It is very important.’
‘Well, that’s not going to be easy. Brownies weigh nothing and are famously difficult to track.’
We looked around at the dew-covered grass and then at each other. We were both wearing the same ear- to-ear grin. You see, Brownies are usually difficult to track-except when one of them is wearing Nikes.
Whoever stole my shoes must have had tiny feet because he dragged them along the ground, trying to keep my size elevens from falling off. The tracks led into the stream but were easy to pick up on the other side. Fergal dashed under the tree and grabbed a couple of branches that we could use as weapons. He shouted a sarcastic, ‘Thanks,’ as the alder tried to rain more wood down on him.
We followed the trail across some wide, open fields that led to rolling hills. The trees were thin and the ground pretty spongy but periodically my bare feet made contact with a rock or a twig that made me yelp. I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to keep up this pace, but saying that, I felt a lot better than I did yesterday.
Every time I wanted to ask Fergal if we could rest, I remembered the Sword of Duir-I had to get it back. I had a vision of meeting up with Dad and him saying, ‘Let me get this straight, I give you a sword that has been in our family for thousands of years and you lose it-in a day!’ I really wanted to avoid that conversation. After about an hour of jogging we rounded a small hill. I lost the trail but Fergal laid his head on the ground and pointed to a small cliff face about a quarter-mile to our right.
‘If we are lucky, they are camping in those rocks,’ Fergal said.
‘What makes you think they made camp?’
‘Look, my Nanny Breithe always got mad at me when I talked badly about any race but the truth of it is, Brownies are cocky and stupid. They think they are so stealthy that they are untrackable, but look at these idiots. Not one of them bothered to look behind them to check if they were leaving a trail. My guess is that they were up all night watching us, so I’m hoping they are camping in those rocks.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘Then you’re going to have to buy a new pair of those fancy shoes of yours. Where did you get them anyway?’
‘Scranton,’ I said without thinking.
‘Scranton? Never heard of it.’
‘Yeah.’ I laughed. ‘A lot of people say that.’
The way was a bit harder here and Fergal shushed me every time a pebble underfoot made me bark. When we reached the foot of the knoll Fergal and I took a minute to rub the small stems and leaves off the branches we were carrying so as to fashion them into staffs. They weren’t the best weapons in the world but they would have to do.
Climbing the rocks would have been a cinch if I’d had anything on my feet, but barefoot it was flipping difficult. What was harder than the actual climbing was trying not to curse every time I stepped on some jagged edge. My poor tootsies were taking a beating. If I got through this without getting stabbed by my own sword, I was going to throttle whoever took my Nikes. Fergal reached the summit before me. He peeped over and instantly ducked down, placing his index finger over his lips and indicating that our light-fingered quarry was just over the rise. I pressed up next to him.
‘There’s only two of them,’ he whispered. ‘We need a plan.’
‘Have you ever done this before?’
‘Done what?’
‘Attacked two armed men with sticks?’
‘No, but I’m looking forward to it.’ He smiled.
His smile was so infectious I said, ‘OK, what’s the plan?’
‘One of us should circle around behind them, and when he is in position the other one makes a frontal attack from here. The one of us that comes from the rear should be able to take them out before the one who attacks from here gets sliced up too much.’
‘As much as I don’t fancy the idea of getting “sliced up too much,” you have to go around the back-my feet are killing me.’
‘OK, take a quick look and you’ll see the gap in the back. I’ll be coming from there.’
